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New York State Education

Are You a New York Teacher Spending Your Own Money on School Supplies?

We’re collecting stories from teachers across the state.

Bianca Fortis   ·   August 14, 2024
Three small pails sit atop a counter, one filled with pencils, another filled with markers, and another filled with sticky notes.
During the 2019-20 school year, New York teachers spent an average of $463 on school supplies. | Alan Petersime / Chalkbeat
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This project was produced in partnership with Chalkbeat New York.

Year after year, teachers in New York have had to fill in the gap left by their schools’ thin budgets for expenses as essential as classroom supplies.

During the 2019–2020 school year, New York teachers spent an average of $463 on school supplies, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics. Ninety-five percent of them purchased supplies with their own money. Some turned to crowdfunding platforms like GoFundMe and Donors Choose to cover the cost of basic items like crayons, pencils, and snacks for their students.

New York Focus wants to know how teachers are preparing for the 2024–2025 school year. In partnership with Chalkbeat New York, we’re collecting stories from educators around the state.

Are you a teacher purchasing school supplies out-of-pocket? How much do you plan to spend? Fill out the form below, and let us know if we can connect with you.

Bianca Fortis is the education reporter at New York Focus. She was previously an Abrams reporting fellow at ProPublica, where she spent 18 months investigating how Columbia University protected a predatory doctor who had sexually abused hundreds of patients for more than 20 years… more
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